


Small Mistakes are the Most Embarrassing Thing in the World

by emily_420



Category: Gintama
Genre: Food mention, Gen, blood mention, this is one big shitpost god bless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 21:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4365548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily_420/pseuds/emily_420
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"SJW stands for Shonen Jump Weekly" aka the Yorozuya get a computer and Gin has an unfortunate misunderstanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Mistakes are the Most Embarrassing Thing in the World

“The hell is this?” Gin said as he looked down at an odd contraption Gengai was presenting him in his garage, the smell of dust and fuel and metal mingling in an oddly pleasant way.

“Well, it might not work, but I tried to make a computer for the first time. ‘Cause those are big right now, I’d do well if I could sell some,” Gengai wheezed, wiping his hands on an oil-stained cloth. 

“Really.” Gin could feel the scepticism radiating from Shinpachi beside him without having to look. It didn’t particularly _look_ like a computer, or at least not any Gin had ever seen. The screen was round, like a porthole, and it didn’t seem to have any proper backing on it, memory boards and cables and some other junk he couldn’t identify hanging out in the open like an old person at a nude beach. Some of it was even moving – there was a little spinny part on the side that resembled a hamster wheel – and the keyboard was mounted directly below the screen, closer to a typewriter than any kind of modern thing.

“Gengai-san,” Shinpachi started tentatively, a noble attempt at tact, “you might have to work on it a little more to make it marketable.”

Gengai scratched his head, said, “Yeah, s’why I was thinking I’d get you lot to give it a test run for me. You’re young’uns so you oughta know better’n me about this kinda thing.”

Stroking his chin in mock thought, Gin sidled up to him. “You know, this sounds awfully like a _job_ …”

“Yeah, I’ll pay you a little. Just do it, could ya?”

Gengai stuck a finger up his nose. Gin shared a look with his kids. They shrugged. Done deal.

+

“What am I meant to do on this?” Gin said, looking at the computer with flat uninterested eyes. They’d set it up on his desk, since there wasn’t really anything else there anyway and it was the most appropriate spot for it. The other two peered excitedly over his shoulders. Sadaharu gave a whining snuffle in his sleep from the corner.

“What do you want to do?” Shinpachi tried to help him along. “I mean, if it works properly you can do all sorts of things… like play games, or read about whatever you want, or talk to people…”

“Games? Can I play pachinko? Can I play pachinko on here?”

Kagura started to gnaw on some sukonbu, an impatient air about the way she ground it between her teeth.

“Probably,” Shinpachi sighed, “but, Gin-san, on the internet it’s more of a scam than in real life. You’re better off doing something else.”

“Boring,” Gin said, aloof as he jiggled the mouse over different icons on the screen. “What about this one?” He clicked on the Web Adventurer icon. Shinpachi groaned internally. Of course Gin would pick the worst browser ever. Was there some kind of pull he felt to it? Shinpachi wondered. A feeling of kinship? Both were slow to get anything done, it would be no wonder.

After a brief and futile attempt at explaining to a grown man who had no idea about technology what exactly the internet is, Shinpachi doogled it and tersely read out a definition. Gin was making a constipated face as if he still didn’t understand but didn’t want to admit it.

Kagura smacked noisily on her sukonbu, said, “Shinpachi, when you use these things what do you do? You spend ages on there, yes?”

“Ah, me?” Heat rose to Shinpachi’s cheeks, and he averted his eyes. “W-Well, sometimes I go into forums and talk to people… Oh, and I run an Otsuu-chan fan blog…”

“What’s a blob?” Gin asked, clicking absently on different parts of the window. “Sounds weird, Shinpachi, I don’t know if I should be letting you do that…”

“It’s not _weird_ , it’s–”

“Please think about Gin-san’s feelings as your caregiver,” Gin’s voice took on a very fake very over-dramatic rise. Shinpachi scowled.

“When have you ever given me care?!” Shinpachi snapped at him. “Anyway, a blog is just a place for things you like. You could even have one, Gin-san.”

“Could I have one?” Kagura asked, spinning the hamster-wheel-like thing on the side of the computer. She turned big, pleading blue eyes on him. “Gin-chan, I want a blob.”

Gin leant back in his chair, draping a hand over his eyes. “Ahh, it’s just too much for me! I don’t know! Gin-san doesn’t know about nets or blobs! I’m sorry! I’ve failed you!”

The computer was making a whirring sound, as if it was overheating. Kagura was spinning the wheel faster and faster. Sadaharu sneezed.

+

After convincing Kagura to cease the war she was unknowingly waging against the innocent computer and coaxing Gin out of his melodrama, Shinpachi set up blogs for each of them while attempting to talk them through how it worked.

“So, what, I share pictures and stuff on it?” Gin had returned to his more familiar pastime of picking his nose. “With who? Who sees it?”

“The people who follow your blog.”

“Who follows my blog?”

“No one, yet.”

“Whaaat?” Gin complained. “So how do I get them to?”

Shinpachi sighed for the umpteenth time. “You don’t _make_ them, they just choose to.”

“Then what’s the _point_?”

“You have a personal platform to talk honestly about your hobbies.” Gin was giving him an impressively blank look. “So for you, you could talk about Jump, or Ketsuno Ana, or, I don’t know, gambling, whatever. It all goes.”

Adopting a thoughtful look, Gin hummed, still seeming sceptical. “Talking about manga, huh…? That does sound appealing, Pattsuan. I _have_ been having some thoughts on N*ruto lately that Hattori-kun hasn’t been agreeing with…”

“Good,” Shinpachi huffed, exasperated, “do that then. Complain about N*ruto on the internet. God knows you’ll have people agree with you.”

+

There was an insistent tapping coming from where Gin sat hunched at his desk. It had been five minutes, and Shinpachi wasn’t going to say anything at first, kept his head down and kept mopping, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen Gin concentrate so hard.

Wiping at his forehead, Shinpachi asked, weary and cautious, “Gin-san, what are you doing?”

Gin practically exploded, not taking his eyes from the screen as he kept up his furious typing. “This bastard is insulting everything I hold dear.”

“Um.”

“I mean,” he tossed his head a little to get his hair out of his eyes, “’corrupting youth’? ‘Brainwashing a good website’? I’m not going to stand for this, Shinpachi!”

“Gin-san, what are you–”

Gin looked away from his textual tirade for a moment, a fiery fury filling his face, gleaming in his eyes. “They’re calling themselves anti-SJWs, Shinpachi! Anti-Shonen Jump Weekly! It’s not right!”

Shinpachi felt a distinct sinking feeling and a certain level of second-hand embarrassment. Before he could explain how deeply mistaken Gin was, he’d clicked something with a triumphant look on his face and exclaimed, “That’ll show them!”

 _This is bad,_ Shinpachi thought.

+

They hadn’t been able to figure out whose turn it was to walk Sadaharu, so they all went out into the fading afternoon together. Although, to be truthful, Sadaharu couldn’t be _walked_ so much as _followed after and watched with a stern eye_ , so really they were trailing after him and occasionally doing their best to stop him from peeing on other people’s property.

A pair of people were heading towards them, wearing familiar uniforms; Sougo and someone they’d never met, deep in conversation. Shinpachi heard Kagura spit on the ground and winced. He hoped that they didn’t fight too much, or at least not as much as they had last time, because that hadn’t been cheap to come out of what with all the destruction they’d caused. Sougo seemed to be immersed in whatever he was saying as he neared them, though, so maybe it was okay.

Sadaharu stopped to sniff at the ground in that canine way that makes no sense, and Shinpachi could hear Sougo complaining to his companion, “Man, it’s such a pain in the ass, seriously. We can’t have any place to ourselves. Damn SJWs.”

Later, Shinpachi would swear he heard Gin’s teeth clench. He certainly _saw_ his hands ball into fists. Time seemed to stand still; Shinpachi got his first, and likely only, sense of what it must be like to see the future. Sougo looked as careless as ever as he noticed Gin, started to raise a hand in greeting, but Gin’s anger was too hasty for formalities.

“Okita-kun!” he accosted the younger man, looking something between about to punch something and about to cry. “I thought better of you than this! You’re on their side?!”

Sougo smacked on his bubblegum, tilted his head a little. “Danna, what are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb! You’re in on the anti-SJW trend, huh?! And I thought I could trust you!”

 _Melodramatic,_ Shinpachi thought, desperately wanting to put an end to the confrontation but struck with the inescapable feeling of watching a train wreck in slow motion. Behind him, Kagura was trying to pry some garbage out of Sadaharu’s maw. The sun was setting, bars of golden light warming everything over and casting long, intimidating shadows on the ground. Somewhere, a crow was cawing.

“Danna,” Sougo started slowly, stood across from Gin in the middle of the street as if they were in a bad western, “you’re one of _them_?”

“You’re darn tootin’ I am,” Gin asserted, apparently playing along with the simile, which didn’t quite make sense since no one had said it aloud, but we don’t talk about that. Gin rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. Sougo cracked his neck. A businessman walked past, loudly discussing dinner plans on his phone. A breeze blew through the street.

What happened next, Shinpachi would rather forget.

+

Gin sat the cardboard box down with a thud.

“You’re back, eh?” Gengai wiped his forehead, wrench in hand even though he ought to have closed shop hours ago. “Did she do okay?”

“Yeah, it works.” Gin’s voice was hollow. His clothes dirty and ruffled, his skin littered with purpling bruises and drying blood, he wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes.

“I’ll get your pay, then?”  

“Ah, no,” Gin cut him off, voice wavering a little. It was a bit sad. “It’s fine.”

They left Gengai looking bewildered.

Staring out into the twilight, something heartbroken in his eyes, Gin swore, “I’m… never using the internet again.”


End file.
